Shootings scare me.

I’m sure everyone reading this has had that thought at least once in their lifetime. But despite the horror, gun violence is still a subject that everyone hates to talk about. It’s heavy. When we are facing heavy topics, we throw them around, expecting the weight to dissipate along with the perspective and opinions of the opposing side.

At least, that’s how it seems when the tragedy and ruin aren’t thrown in front of us.

Gun control is controversial in nature. It's taboo to many people. As a society, we don’t want to talk about it until something terrible happens.

We run from confrontation.

And that’s what this shooting was: a confrontation. We are again confronted with senseless death, the loss that is indescribable to the victims and those left behind in their wake. We stand confronted with the fact that America repeats history over and over again after promising to stop. Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Orlando, and countless other tragedies are paired with the same worn out media-driven narrative.

We sit with the sick reality that news outlets know exactly how to manipulate our human nature. America wants to know the killer’s motives, so every news source scrambles to put their own spin on investigative reports. They send us updates labeled as urgent alerts long after the damage has been done. The killer is always humanized, forever portrayed in the same light as a villain in a movie.

But this isn’t some fiction story, this is real life. Where real people with families and friends are dying.

On Monday morning, the country awoke to something terrible and horrific. We are slapped in the face with a reminder that America has continued to be divisive and stubborn. It's like political affiliation and pride matter more than innocent people dying. Why? How many more of these tragedies is it going to take before we get our act together and stop the violence?

Shootings are normalized into our society. We shouldn’t have to be afraid to go see a movie, attend school, enjoy a night out with music and dancing with the fear that we might not come home. But many of us are because shootings like this keep happening.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I have the perfect solution to prevent this from happening again. But I do know that we’re stronger as an entire country than we are divided. We need to come together. We need to put aside our differences. We need to stop focusing on what makes us different from our neighbors and learn to notice our similarities and to cherish this bond.

We need to act as the victims in Las Vegas did when they protected one another. They performed CPR on strangers, carried each other out of the madness on their shoulders, and on panels of fencing. We need to start being selfless. Only then can we plan for change.

Las Vegas, please know that we are praying for you and that we are going to help you get through this. Together.